As KBO season begins, Thames optimistic for MLB's chances

Eric Thames, like so many other baseball players, media members and fans, turned on his television late Monday night to watch a real, live ballgame between two professional teams. And like so many others who tuned in, Thames was mortified by the sight of a tarp covering the infield at Daegu Samsung Lions Park.

"Initially I was angry, because it was a rain delay!" the Nationals slugger said with a laugh. "I turned it on and was like, some baseball finally ... and I turn it on and it's a rain delay. And I'm like: This year needs to calm down! There's no way they can cancel the season opener over there!"

They did not have to cancel the opener of the Korea Baseball Organization's 2020 season. After a 30-minute delay, the game between the Lions and the NC Dinos got underway. And Thames was able to enjoy the simple pleasure of a ballgame, this particular one featuring the Dinos team he spent three seasons with before returning to Major League Baseball in 2017.

It's easy to get excited by this development, for a couple of reasons:

* Any live sporting event, at this point, is cause for celebration.

* If they can play baseball in South Korea right now, isn't that reason to believe they could play baseball in the United States relatively soon?

That's what MLB is hoping, counting on KBO to set the course for baseball in 2020 and show the rest of the world how it can be done.

How it's being done on the other side of the world is with empty stadiums, non-players wearing masks on their faces and a whole lot of messaging about staying safe. And folks back here are taking notice, growing more optimistic about the chances of a similar resumption this summer.

"I am very, very optimistic," Thames said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. "I'm checking the news every morning and seeing more and more stuff is opening up gradually. That's optimistic for me. Because once we start getting more people outside ... yes, we need to keep the numbers down, as far as cases. But all of us are ready, all the players. And we know it's going to happen eventually."

Thames' optimism may have merit. Certainly, in recent days there's been more chatter about a second round of spring training being held during the second half of June and a condensed regular season beginning in early July.

But everybody had better acknowledge the biggest reason they're playing baseball in South Korea and they're not playing baseball in America right now: The Koreans have effectively contained the coronavirus through aggressive testing and public mask-wearing. South Korea has had only 10,816 total documented cases of COVID-19, a rate of 211 cases per 1 million people, according to FiveThirtyEight.com. Here in the United States, more than 1.2 million cases have been documented, a rate of 3,700 cases per 1 million people.

That's a striking difference, and it's by far the No. 1 reason the KBO is underway now while MLB continues to be shut down.

If MLB truly wants to play this summer, a tremendous amount of progress is going to have to be made in the fight against the virus over the next month.

Until then, there's nothing wrong with watching the late-night KBO games and hoping it's a sign of things to come here.

"At first we were all terrified that the whole year would be canceled," Thames said. "But for us to see these people on TV, they're making it work with no fans. ... As long as we play, that's all that matters. America needs to see baseball. We need to entertain. People are at home watching these movies, they've seen the same movie for months. So we need to start getting back to work and start showing them some homers."